Detention Detail PV Beyond the Treeline

This cool banner was made by Novalie Moon

His gamble began. The start was good. The girl was nice, and hopefully, she would indeed be nice enough not to spread the word that Zach Zaphiere got a detention. She introduced herself as Rosaline. Zach nodded and smiled, "Good to see you too." He followed her to take a pair of gloves and put them on.

The gloves surprisingly suited his size.

Small thing, but could make Zach's day better. So he thought until another person approached him, a boy with short light brown hair. Zach felt familiar when he saw the boy. However, he was bad at remembering the names of people he had never talked to before. Perhaps he saw him in the Hospital Wing when Zach was on duty as an intern, or saw him sometimes when he was still a prefect. His days after stepping down from Prefect were spent on himself. He didn't care about anything but getting more resources in his Healing Magic studies. "Yes, I am," Zach responded.

It wasn't long until the next person came up. Very eye-catching, with his pink hair. Did he dye his hair for this detention? Zach judged the boy silently. Zach didn't have any problem with the colour. Zach himself had dyed his hair pink before for the Fall Ball event, which was very different from this occasion where all students were called for a detention.

The boys’ arrival made Zach somewhat anxious. It was no longer just one mouth he had to worry about spreading the news of Zach Zaphiere getting detention. It was three now. He could still hide his uneasiness behind his fake calmness. He looked at both boys and said, "I don't mind, as long as Rosaline also doesn't mind."

Zach laced his fingers together and gave the boys a faint smile, "I'm Zach, by the way. It would be better if I could get to know your names before we start working on this."

What a wonderful day. Zach hoped nothing bad would happen, though he had his suspicions, looking at the number of students who got this detention. Something felt out of place, but Zach didn't know what it was.

Action: Wearing the gloves. to be decided. If Damien chose to go to the mysterious man, Zach would follow him. If he doesn't, Zach would start cleaning the Grounds.
Interaction: @Rosaline Everhart; @Damien Dragonclaw; @Mamori Anezaki
Open. Please mention me.
TRUNK
STA 8 | EVA 11 | STR 3 | WIS 12 | ARC 10 | ACC 12
Rapid Reviver | Blindvision | Healing Sage | Paragon of Health (Haven't been decided since he knew no one)

The theory that the broken mirror, now empty and scribbled on, might be a haunted object had its own charm. But given the "R+T" and "GRYFFYS 4EVER " carved on it, it was hard to imagine it being anything other than tainted by bad taste. What was really getting the Slytherin thinking now was that she'd just told him she'd ventured near the Forbidden Forest. Now that was a very... reckless idea. Nevertheless, he had to admit he himself had an interest in it: after all, it was home to Britain's most famous centaur community. His parents had told him a few stories about them when he was little. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten half of them.

“What were you hoping to find there?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow, half intrigued and frankly bewildered. “Were you looking for the colony of giant spiders? And yes… I would have imagined that you would have, at worst, bought some graded copies from Ravenclaw,” he teased her.

He stoop up to pull out the flimsy mirror and went to add it to a pile of other, average-sized, miscellaneous debris. Glancing around, he saw an older student from their house starting a fire. Richard mentally approved of the idea, though he preferred not to repeat the action. Perhaps the Headmaster had reserved that task for the older students.

He shrugged and turned towards Skylar, who was a few meters away. There, not far from her, a strange glint caught his eye. Frowning, he pointed a finger at it, tilting his head in curiosity.

“There’s something shiny to your right. Is it a ring? An earring?” he asked, perplexed, unable to see clearly what it could be from where he was.

ACTION : points at the area where he can see a strange glint
MENTION : @Skylar Astor

Stats: Sta: 5 | Wis: 7 | Eva: 5 | Str: 5 | AP: 7 | Ac: 6
Abilities: Evasive Maneuvers
Mentioning: @Avery Abernathy@Tatiana Contraire@Ophelia Vanderbilt
Actions: Scourgifying the ward, fetching Tatiana, asking her to take a look at the thingy he found (suspects it's a ward but isn't sure).

Paul's eyes widened with surprise, when Ave pulled out spare dragon gloves. Hm, didn't expect that. Cool! Thought the boy. "Whoa! Didn't expect you'd actually have an extra pair. Thinking ahead... neat of ya." He took them and put both of them on his hands. He then fisted one palm, offering her a fist bump.

As Ave told him she hated insects, Paul stitched his eyebrows. "Really? Why?" Asked the boy. "I find most of them pretty cool. But only those which are harmless and helpful in nature. Like bees and ants and beetles. And the pretty ones too! Dragonflies and fireflies and butterflies and... such. And those that can race, of course! Like, crickets, or grasshoppers, or cicadas! Paul giggled after that. "You can't really race with cicadas, but you can measure their loudness and make it into a competition, marking their scores. Such a shame that they're so hard to catch." Said the boy with genuine sadness. "Actually, me and my friend are going to collect some insects, to lure the Imps soon! Sad. Would've offered you to join us, but, if you don't like them..." Paul shrugged.

The sounds from his left side didn't go any quieter, so he grimaced, suggesting. "Yeah, maybe. But..." And just like that, Turner got distracted. Why? Reason one, his Wingardium was successful, which, alone, was a reason to celebrate for the young wizard. And reason two, there was something he uncovered while lifting the branch. "Uh... huh... what's that on the ground?" Paul pointed his index finger at the broken ward, checking his surroundings to get to know where to lay the branch. After he put it away, he ran forward, to the ward.

Squatting right next to it, he reached to it with one of his glove-covered hands, and tried to wipe off some of the soil and other biological material, like thorns and grass. At some point, he grew tired of it, pointing his wand at it and ordering: "Scourgify!"

"Hm, it.... it looks dysfunctional. Do you think it could be the ward?" Paul asked. As a muggleborn, he had no clue about this further magical stuff. Muggle wards were usually stones with numbers on them. This one, however, looked like a seal and had some sort of an engraving on it (not that Paul knew what it was either).

What could I do, what could I do? Hm... I've got an idea! He stood up quickly, explaining: "Hang on! I'm gonna get someone who could know what it is!" So Paul ran away, deeper into the crowd, with an only goal; @Tatiana Contraire. "Tatiana! Hey... and hi... uhm... Tatiana's friend." Paul apparently didn't know the girl's name, he just remembered her from Duelling Hill. "Uhm... I found something on the ground, below a tree stick. But I dunno what it could be. Care to join us and take a look?"

..... (¯`v´¯)
........•.¸.•´
....¸.•´
☻/
/▌
/ \

WC Reducio 505

Stats Reducio Stamina: 4 Evasion: 6 Strength: 5 Wisdom: 8 Arcane Power: 5 Accuracy: 7

Action Reducio Continuing to work and chat to Tina, blissfully unaware

Outfit Reducio Hogwarts robes with Ravenclaw badge poorly sewn over Slytherin one. Coat on top preventing the badge being seen.

Interacting: Reducio @Tina Carille

OOC note: Reducio 1) While everything written is true for Dido, much is intentionally incorrect (eg: Dido is, in fact, not in Ravenclaw!)

As Dido stared down at the gloves in her hand, perfect after her attempt to “repair” them, she suddenly jumped when Tina appeared right back beside her, apologising profusely. A hint of something that must have been annoyance crept into Dido’s mind as Tina spoke, though it wasn’t quite the same feelings as in the moments before. Instead, it was more nauseating than painful, more cold than the red-hot anger that has flushed in her cheeks. It twisted at Dido’s insides, urging her mind into a small dark corner and sending the unsettling thought that she was somehow at fault barrelling around inside her head.

No matter what Dido thought of this emotion, which was, of course, guilt, she instinctively understood what was meant to be done in response to such words and immediately grabbed Tina’s hand, comfortingly, and reassured her that she’d “done nothing wrong!” and that she “wasn’t at all stupid!”

Dido assumed her attempts at comfort had worked, given the smile that appeared on Tina’s face, though some part of her recognised that it wasn’t entirely genuine. As her friend asked where to work, offering the options of working in front of the headmaster or instead at the back of the crowd, Dido listened intently, anxious to rid herself of that sickening feeling. She laughed- a warm, happy sound- at Tina’s comment on the professor’s drink.

That laugh came again as she noticed Tina’s discomfort at the work. It wasn’t a cruel laugh exactly, that would have had a different pitch or pattern, nor was it hysterical like it had been the day the girls had fought. It was, as before, warm and joyful, much like Dido herself in those past few weeks. Nothing could convince her that life was not a miraculous barrel of fun and love. Well, nothing except from the growing number of minutes wasted following Mikaela Hendricks around the castle.

But she wasn’t following Mikaela on that June Saturday. She was having fun with her best friend at Hogwarts, in detention.

On the other hand, said friend was not having fun in the slightest. Tina turned to Dido with tears in he eyes and began to say, “Dido, do you ever get tired of pretending that everything’s ok?”

Dido looked at the girl carefully, a concerned frown forming on her face.

“Tina…”

“I’m just so…Dido I’m tired of pretending everything is ok.”

Dido stared at the girl and, like before, began to comfort her, offering words of reassurance.

“Tina don’t- you are ok! You’re the most wonderful friend- and everyone gets a detention every once in a while! Think of it as part of the Hogwarts experience.”

Outwardly, Dido was the perfectly supportive friend but inwardly? She was simply confused. What did Tina have to be upset about? Her life was perfect. And even if it wasn’t quite as perfect as she imagined, it was still surely a life everyone dreamt of!

Unfortunately, Dido didn’t quite realise that what she wanted wasn’t necessarily the same as what everyone else wanted.

Credit to Tabitha Murrey

Interacting: @Fawkes Chaos | Open to interactions!
Mentioning: Evelynn Decipio, Archer Duncan, Dahlia Lee, Paul Turner, all you rule-breaking duelling captains
Reason for detention: [d20: 11], unauthorized duelling

The common question of the day (though Aislin wasn't listening enough to know that): What did you do? Aislin at least had the good sense to look a bit ashamed when Fawkes, her co-captain, asked. She scratched her nose (with the hand not holding shears), and admitted, "Duelling out on the grounds." She had her reasons, not that they were very good ones. All the hours of indoor practice when the weather was this nice were just kind of miserable, and trouble had a way of sounding more like fun than rule-breaking around her cousins.

Eager to move on, Aislin followed Fawkes to a decent starting place (several strides toward the Forbidden Forest, where all the mess was), and decided to start with picking up fallen branches. Not the huge ones, those could be saved for someone taller or a Levitation Charm. Did Headmaster Lear just want them in a sort of pile? They would have to be moved somewhere else eventually, or wind would undo and scatter all of their work. She had never actually seen what happened to the sticks they collected and weeds they pulled at her grandparents' farm. "Where does all this go?" she asked Fawkes, in case she knew. Aislin only had guesses. Piling at some specific dump location? Burning? Vanishing? Vanishing sounded the most sophisticated, a good magic-based solution, but that would have to be left to someone much more advanced in Transfiguration.

She was doing a good job of tuning out the swarm of students; she didn't really like crowds, and that was what this would be until people spread out to do the work. A couple more notable faces did snag her attention: Dahlia and Paul, who had been there when she almost made herself late for class trying to save the courtyard worms, a whole collection of duelling captains, so at least she was far from the only one in trouble (she hadn't seen any of the Gryffindor captains yet, maybe they should be trusted most of all), and Evelynn Decipio, the best duellist in all of Hogwarts in Aislin's opinion. Evelynn could have kept her attention the longest, if she hadn't disappeared behind other people, but for a moment Aislin had openly stared and likely missed anything Fawkes might have said. She hadn't worked up the courage to ask the seventh year how she made her magic so grand, and definitely wasn't going to go up now, while she was in detention for a stupid reason. She bet Evelynn could vanish most of this in one go if she really wanted to.

Another stick picked up, very many more to go. Enough horror stories about the Forbidden Forest had been told to her from a young age that she'd never come this close, but now that she was here and already anticipating the dull weight of boredom, it had her curiosity. "I've heard there's giant spiders in there," Aislin said, with about the same energy as commenting on the weather. Admittedly, giant spiders sounded fascinating. Had any witch ever gotten close enough to study them? Did they behave like normal spiders? Probably not, since they had such different metabolism needs. She picked up another stick and tried to imagine how their anatomy would need to change at those proportions.

The sunrise air was filled with overlapping voices: dozens of side conversations, yelling that someone was a worm, incanting Incendio Tria... wait a minute. Aislin stood up fully, abandoning her stooped efforts to clear the brush. It was the wizard equivalent of screaming FIRE! (the urgency and volume came from the Tria), except the fire wasn't raging, yet. "That's a bad idea," she observed. Incendio might work to clear the area a bit, emphasis on might, but the triple version of the spell was way too powerful and they were all standing in dead plant matter, perfect fuel.

Action: Picking up sticks and watching Archer's cast

Stats: STA: 7 • EVA: 6 • STR: 4 • WIS: 7 • ARC: 5 • ACC: 7
Abilities: Charmer (opponents: N/A, we're all friends here =])
Inventory: Wand, dragonhide gloves, shears, assorted pocket contents (bread roll, bag of jelly slugs, small can, rock)

Post Tracker: 1 | 2 | 3

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

xxwordcount 1324/200

xxxxjune 2026 datexx

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

xx

Getting introduced by a third party when he was perfectly capable of doing it himself was mildly something, though it did surface a overdue realization — Damien was one of his customers, oops. Mamori filed both away while releasing his arm from around Damien's shoulder and settled into stillness while the Ravenclaw boy monopolized the conversation, anxiously ranting and info-dumping at a pace that left no room for interruption; a separate part of the badger's brain was already drafting the rebuttal. Damien was such a yapper under stress, interesting to know. "The only reason I'm not mad about what you did and more about the fact it got me a detention —" Oh wow. Mamori had the grace not to say anything to that, but only barely, because apparently "not mad" now included several very specific minutes of Damien being demonstrably, categorically, and enthusiastically mad about exactly what the pink-haired badger did. But the suspicious dude Damien had mentioned was rather interesting, specifically because it meant his prediction had landed. Mamori made a quiet note to eventually append a line somewhere in his testimonials section along the lines of "previous client successfully encountered mysterious figure near the treeline. results may vary." He waited until Damien's last syllable landed, then smile as he lifted one hand and gave the boy (who had not by any visible measure, fully recovered his composure) a shoulder pat. "Done? Good! Deep breath first — inhale, exhale, do that a few times — now we go through this one at a time." The emotional containment had to come first, not due to chronological order being unimportant but because someone convinced the ceiling was collapsing had limited capacity for incoming information. On hearing the facts as presented, Mamori was fairly certain this was Damien's first encounter with the school's disciplinary system. "First things first, this is your first detention, so it's very unlikely the school will contact your parents." he said it with a trust-me-bro-I-have-extensive-field-experience expression on, which suggest that his own record in this area was at best, not entirely spotless. "I think there's an internal disciplinary record somewhere, but letters home are for the sort of repeat offenders who've given the staff enough material to justify the paperwork." Nobody wanted to do paperwork. Mamori was already developing a mild aversion to it from captain duties alone, and the staff had been at it considerably longer; if they could avoid it, they probably would. Though, Mamori did blamed it partly on institutional laziness and partly on the fact that this school's threshold for what constituted a genuine emergency was completely unhinged. The bar for parental contact was, from what he had gathered about Muggle schools secondhand, set at a completely different altitude. "And consider the turnout today; we have 70 or maybe even 80 people here, there is no version of this where they are individually drafting and dispatching 70+ letters and owl-ing them out; that is a logistical nightmare." Which meant the complete list of people with any knowledge of Damien being in detention today was Damien, Mamori, Zach, Rosaline, the headmaster, and whoever had caught Damien. "So unless you personally decide to bring it up, your parents are never going to find out about this." This is technically an oversimplification, because there was always a chance it surfaced eventually, but by then Damien would presumably be old enough to handle that conversation with his parents on his own terms, or so Mamori chose to believe. Mamori gave that a moment to settle, watched Damien's face do whatever it was going to do, and then continued on. "Which brings me to the part where you suggested my business is responsible for your detention." His tone changed abruptly, sharpening from casual to stern signaling a shift in stance. "You signed the disclaimer when I delivered the reading. I realize that some individuals consider signing such documents to be merely a formality, but I would strongly urge you to look at exactly what it said because it detailed, in no uncertain terms, that what I was offering was an interpretive divination-adjacent service, rather than a guaranteed road map to what's going to happen in the future." He deeply regretted not having his ledger on him — he could have brought up the relevant section and read it word for word, which would have been three hundred times more satisfying. From this point on it was going in the wand holster, detention or not; logistics were to be decided. The pink-haired badger paused ato bit to clear his throat and then pressed on, because this was one of the rare occasions where umm-actually-ing was entirely justified and he was not about to let it go to waste. Damien had been going for a while. His turn running long was fair compensation. "So! I rendered a service, you received that service, and the fact that you then chose — independently, with full knowledge that the Forbidden Forest is a restricted area — to act on your own interpretation of that service is not something that falls within the service provider's scope of responsibility, by any reasonable definition of that term. You are not an infant without agency, and I think on some level you are aware of that. You made a decision, that decision carried a consequence, and the person standing at the origin point of that chain of events is you, not me." He had more to say on the subject, quite a lot more in fact, and had every intention of continuing, before some belated social instinct suggested that this was probably the right place to stop. "Ergo, I don't owe you anything." Mamori exhaled, but then notices he was somewhat tired from all of the yapping; he would never understand how much lawyers can last hours and hours just doing that. He also had not had a single drink of water since morning and was now very aware of it. "That said." He pulled his gloves on properly. "If you really want to go I can go with you. But you would need to use one of the birthday vouchers I gave you to purchase my labor, because asking me to walk into a situation with a significant chance of dying is not a freebie service." Ten Galleons were already doing a lot to this high degree of risk if you really think about it. It should have been twenty. "And just to put it on record now — if we get caught again, you become a repeat offender, and then they do owl your parents." Mamori's too, for that matter; which meant another round of coming up with something convincing enough to survive a conversation with his father. Truly, the sacrifices he made for friendship. The actual question was whether the suspicious dude was still anywhere near the spot where Damien had last seen him. Someone passing through was not necessarily someone who had stayed, and the longer Damien had spent processing the emotional implications of a detention, the more ground that figure could have covered in any number of directions. But the only way to know was to actually go. "If we're going, now is the only window," he said, scanning the crowd. While people were still congregated in one mass, one or two figures slipping out didn't register. Once the group dispersed and everyone settled into their fixed positions for the work, absences became conspicuous. He turned toward Zach, who also appeared to have already put his gloves on, and then to Rosaline, who had the look of someone who was too well-behaved to be entirely comfortable with this. "No hard feelings if this is where we split! It's a real risk and there's no reason for either of you to be involved." He was, it had to be said, actively hoping Zach would come. Older didn't necessarily mean more reliable, but Zach at least looked the part.

xx

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

xxx

xx

𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 being annoying → quietly scouting the crowd for an exit window 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 @Damien Dragonclaw, @Zach Zaphiere, @Rosaline Everhart 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑠 sta. 5 | eva. 10 | str. 5 | wis. 9 | arc. 3 | acc. 10 𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 Non-Human Enthusiast | Foulplay 𝑜𝑜𝑐 open to interactions!xxxxxxxxx

xxx